Trail Ridge Timber Frames, Inc.

Germany Tour 2002

Rottweil

 Here is a timber frame stripped to its bare bones. Its roof system is a typical medieval style with 2 principal purlins and a double collar tie arrangement with one part being in tension and the other part in compression. I know this is a little technical but take my word it was real neat! I liked how the 2nd floor overhung the 1st floor, which you can see in the left side of the picture.
   
Looking inside out we see a complicated set up of half-lapped timbers that you find in so many German timber frames. The timbers would normally have had small sticks woven (like in a basket) in between. This would have provided the support for the stucco or adobe plaster.

Theses timbers don't appear to have any bluish tint. They must be a local variety of oak.

   

Four floors to this frame. When looking at German timber frames I tried to find some pattern to the style of framing from floor to floor. This frame does show some symmetry.
   
I love this picture. This oak peg obviously failed. Technically it is called "sheer failure." However, it was pulled out of timbers that were just then being replaced after 638 years of use. The building was built in 1364.

We were "stealing" the peg from a pile of timbers at the base of building hoping not to get caught, when at the very moment someone yelled at us from the top of the building. I ran off. Actually, they cared nothing about the timbers, trash to them, ancient artifacts to us. They just didn't want any of us to get hurt by falling debris. Still, I like to think that I actually "plundered" the site while being pursued. That's what I've told my friends. "And one guy even started shooting at us with a machine gun!"

   
We spent a part of a day visiting a trade school. In Germany the kids decide in junior high to either take an academic route or learn a skill. These young men obviously chose the 2nd, and better of the two routes. They must be the "Cream of the German Youth" choosing to be wood workers.

They are wearing the traditional garb of a zimmerman; the black vest and bell bottom pants, usually black. Now that would make even me hesitate in becoming a woodworker. At Trail Ridge Timber Frames, Inc. our traditional garb are Teva sandals (steel toe variety of course) shorts, and a t-shirt. Greg, being a hockey enthusiast, usually wears the same hockey t-shirt every day! He has his own separate place at the shop to work.
   
Here is a model of a timbered roof system that the young zimmermen made.

   

Here are some slightly older zimmermen after school.
   

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